Most prisoners in Cuba, like most Cubans, have completed their vaccination regimen according to the national strategy to fight COVID-19, and are receiving boosters to protect their health and that of personnel working in penitentiaries.
Despite the impact of the pandemic, especially at its peak the Ministry of the Interior's medical services, with the help Public Health authorities, managed to control the situation, following rigorous protocols for the protection of the prison population, according to a note on the Ministry's website.
The penitentiary system was prepared to confront the virus in a potentially complex context, thus ensuring that no cases were reported within prison facilities during the first six months of the pandemic, reported Colonel Sara Rubio, head of the Ministry's Department of Penitentiary Facilities.
Also reported was work done by the National Hospital for Prisoners located at the Combinado del Este Penitentiary Complex, the largest such facility in the country's prison system, where, despite some COVID cases, the staff has succeeded in controlling the disease without major outbreaks, by taking steps to cut transmission.
According to Dr. Carlos Alberto Espinosa Carbonell, director of the hospital, strict surveillance of those admitted and released back to a prison, plus sanitary measures adopted with the active participation of inmates and their families, were decisive in controlling the pandemic within these facilities.
At this moment, the priority in all the country's penitentiaries is to complete vaccination and increase the administration of boosters, as the most effective way to control the disease and limit the spread of the Omicron variant.
